“I think we learned from that we can never let up on these guys,” Hononegah coach Vee Jevremovic said.

“We knew we couldn’t relax because the second we get comfy they can come back and score on us,” Hononegah senior co-captain Nick Stella said.

The Indians (16-3-2) scored twice in the first eight minutes to gain an early lead in Saturday’s 3A Auburn Regional championship match, and they never let up on the dangerous, top-seeded Titans in a 5-2 triumph that gave Hononegah the title, and some redemption for the loss that cost them the conference. Hononegah gave up a lead in the final minute and eventually lost to Boylan on penalty kicks in the teams’ previous meeting. This time, the Indians’ determination to put the Titans away prevailed.

“We knew we just had to keep going,” Stella said. “That loss, we all were affected by it emotionally and to come back and to get the goal that I had, it’s just a dream come true. We’ve been trying so long for this and I can’t even explain it, it just feels awesome.”

Stella scored Hononegah’s fourth goal of the match, the first of the second half that pushed Hononegah’s lead to 4-1, but it was much earlier that the Indians established control of the match. Alex Carey’s header goal off of a throw-in started the scoring a little more than six minutes in. A minute and a half later, Zach Moore left-footed one past Boylan’s keeper to put the Indians up 2-0. Then at the 15:32 mark, Andrew Eggers snuck in a third goal to give Hononegah a commanding 3-0 lead.

“Hononegah was ready at the beginning,” Boylan coach Chris Mera said. “We weren’t. I guess it’s my fault. I’ll take the blame for that. Hats off to Hononegah. They came out and they had a mission and they got it done. For our guys, it just wasn’t their day.”

The Titans had a chance to cut to Hononegah’s lead in half when they were trailing 2-0, but Alexis Galvez’s penalty kick hit off the post. Boylan finally got on the scoreboard with a Jamie Vera penalty kick with less than three minutes left before halftime, but the Titans couldn’t do enough to stop the Indians in the second half.

Page 2 of 2 - “You can’t win a game when you give up five goals,” Mera said. “ I credit Hononegah, they scored early, they made us play a way we didn’t want to, but we had to do whatever we could to try and get back in the game.”

Boylan pulled within 4-2 with 25:59 left in the second half when Vera chipped his second goal of the game over the head of Hononegah keeper Henry Reynolds, but that was all the Titans would manage to get past the Indians’ goalie. Hononegah sealed the win with 9:35 left when Moore drove a penalty kick into the net.